Well, if the demographic angle is legit, it's legit.

Oh? Is there a shred of empirical data to support this?

OK fine, but what about actual current reality? Is it not the case that there is an active insurrection within the GOP, the Tea Party-style hard-right true believers resisting the "leadership" presented by the party elite, and their chosen candidate Romney?

There's no real reason for Latinos to break for Democrats by a 2-1 margin except that the Republican party has been actively condemning them.

I haven't seen many crazy Tea Party types drawing attention in the congressional or Senate races, as happened with many Tea Party candidates in 2010.

Well, the one before that seemed pretty ineffective in the short time she was speaker.

You're still not grasping that there are more things to government other than the Presidency.

And when Bush won and then when the Republicans took control of Congress and then when Bush won again we heard the same thing about the Democratic party.

And I would continue to ask for support for the assertion. I don't know what media you frequent, but the chronic tension between the countless factions of Democrats is a subject one would have to work hard to not notice.

Fair enough. But the fact is that roughly two-thirds of GOP primary voters have voted against the wishes of the party establishment, and against the dominant direction of the campaign expenditure. That doesn't describe a normally healthy party.

Perhaps, but wasn't this true for much of 2008 with Hillary and Obama?

I don't remember those. I recall a lot of "Bush stole the election!" (2000) and then "Can you believe how dumb the voters are?" (2004). Then, as soon as Katrina hit, the media started sounding the death knell for the GOP once again.

You're under an illusion that media coverage of the parties is somehow to be judged upon "equality" of emphasis on this or that issue, as opposed to simply accurate depictions of the parties. I remain entirely unpersuaded that any normally perceptive and motivated consumer of the facts has been in any way uninformed about the nature of the coalitions and compromises underlying either of the major parties. Recitation of your personal memories won't do.

Can you come up with a list of competing interests within the GOP that looks anything like the list I posted in #488?

As for Hillary/Obama back in 2006–08, I recall Hillary as being the clear favorite of the Dem establishment, while Obama had the media and the youngsters/grassroots.

Who in the flipping world cares? You're tilting against irrelevant windmills.

There is no credible evidence, none, anywhere, that media bias of any sort has meaningfully influenced any Presidential election in modern history. Is there? You haven't begun to present any. And until you do, I have no idea where it is you intend to be going with your line of, whatever it is.

Your particular recollections aren't the point. The truth is that the dynamic of the Democratic establishment vis-a-vis Clinton/Obama in 2008, and the Republican establishment vis-a-vis Romney/Santorum et al in 2012, are very, very, very, very different, in just about every way.

Um ... what? I quite honestly don't understand what you're saying.

Either your point is that news media coverage (presumably biased news media coverage) directly influences Presidential elections -- in which case, where is the empirical evidence that it has? -- or your point is, well, what?

This is laughable. You don't believe the fawning liberal media had anything to do with Obama's lightning ascent in American politics? He received the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars in free media coverage while a back-bench Illinois legislator and then a back-bench U.S. Senator, despite literally no legislative or leadership accomplishments of note. Obama is the biggest media creation in the history of American politics.

Want to see a great example of the closed GOP information feedback loop, and why it may prove dangerous for the Republican candidates?

Think about the two Barack Obamas that Republicans are running against. One of them is basically a fraud; he’s never held a job before he somehow wound up the Democratic nominee in 2008. Or, as Mitt Romney asserted today: “It’s hard to create a job if you never had one.” Oh, and he’s entirely dependent on a teleprompter.

The other Obama is the scheming, nefarious, stealth left-winger who any day now is going to unleash his radical socialist agenda. This Obama requires Republicans and conservative to chase down every radical “association” and every allegedly radical thing he’s ever said, no matter how mild.

In short, this kind of thinking is what is most likely going to lead to electoral disaster in 2012 for Republicans. (barring economic collapse or a double dip)

(Michael) Lucas, who grew up in the former Soviet Union and immigrated to the United States in 1997 after working in Europe as a male prostitute, founded Lucas Entertainment in 1998, which flourished into a mega-enterprise that produces some of the most lavish gay porn films in the industry. His side company, Lucas Raunch, boasts a repertoire of hardcore fetish videos that are so explicit that Canadian officials banned copies from the country in 2009.

"This is not what Ronald Reagan envisioned," Lucas said after reviewing Santorum's plan. "This is not what the Founding Fathers envisioned. This is what Rick Santorum envisions. And I think the guy is crazy."

Lucas, by the way, considers himself a conservative, votes Republican and donates generously to several libertarian and right-wing causes. And when he casts a ballot in the November election, he hopes it will be for Mitt Romney.

"I would support Romney of course," the director of "Men in Stockings" and "Hunt & Plunge" told Yahoo News. "There is nobody else to support."

"I am not in love with him, but I like him," he added of Romney. "I don't see any danger coming from Romney when it comes to porn. It's just not there. And I think he will be much better than President Obama. Not that it will be difficult to be better than President Obama."

"This is not what Ronald Reagan envisioned," Lucas said after reviewing Santorum's plan.

Did Lincoln say piss-off to his party after his election?

it's hard to imagine a Democratic base forcing the party as far out on a limb as the Tea Party / Norquist crowd has done to the GOP.

but any fan of Reagan is a friend of mine.

History is full of candidates who came out of seemingly nowhere and got saturation media coverage

Oh, good grief.

Please elaborate. How overwhelming was the margin, exactly?

523 — I don't see how that refutes my point about Obama benefitting substantially from a fawning news media. It's simply indisputable that he received millions and millions of dollars' worth of media coverage while a backbench Illinois legislator and then a backbench U.S. Senator.

Re: the Bernstein quote, the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Obama would hardly be the first politician in U.S. history whose primary skill is getting elected. All levels of government are chock full of such people.

Democrat Barack Obama, the junior Senator from Illinois, enjoyed by far the most positive treatment of the major candidates during the first five months of the year—followed closely by Fred Thompson, the actor who at the time was only considering running.

Who had accomplished exactly what in his two terms? And who has won how many delegates up to now while running against a weak set of candidates whom his own party doesn't even particularly like?

Since I didn't see Obama's speech in 2004, he barely registered a blip on my radar until he won the Iowa caucus and started piling up victories in the primaries.

here's a Pew study from late 2007 that showed Obama received three times more favorable than unfavorable media coverage, while Clinton, Giuliani, and McCain were all substantially underwater:

Was Obama's coverage before the primary campaign favorable? Yep. Is that par for the course? Yep. [...] In 2007 he announces he is running for President and that is when the media starts to seriously look at him. Which again is par for the course.

As late as summer of 2007, Hillary was the overwhelming favorite for the nomination.

And here's the kicker--even if all that weren't true, so what? It's not like he has a short list of legislative accomplishments now. Who cares how he got elected in the first place?

Note that the scope of this study was the first five months of 2008,

and the candidate who closely followed Obama in "positive treatment" was that noted liberal darling Fred Thompson.

I'm not sure what kind of coverage you would expect for a candidate in last place, floundering, and with a party that didn't really like him.

(note: from 2009, although I can't imagine it's gone DOWN since Obama took over.)

Fox News Channel beat MSNBC and CNN combined in Total Viewers in both primetime and total day. FNC also ranked #4 in all of cable in primetime for the month, and #7 in total day. The channel had the top 11 programs in Total Viewers and nine out of the top 10 in A25-54 viewers on cable news.

During 2011, FNC averaged 1.86 million viewers in prime time. MSNBC averaged 775,000 and CNN had 689,000. On a total daily basis, FNC averaged 1.07 million, CNN 479,00 and MSNBC 434,000.

For January in prime time, FNC has averaged 1.98 million, CNN 875,000 and MSNBC 817,000.

FNC is posting 1.11 million on a total-day basis, compared with 454,000 for MSNBC and 449,000 for CNN.

When I hear things like this, I do wonder if you have any idea that FOX is the most-watched political news source in the country by some kind of landslide. (note: from 2009, although I can't imagine it's gone DOWN since Obama took over.) I mean, is that even something that registers when you talk about liberal media?

I really, truly thought Thompson would be a threat. I don't think I've ever been more wrong about anything.

Anyway, do you really believe Fox News could have become so popular so quickly if people were happy with the "neutral," "down the middle" coverage of the media establishment? Major newspapers from coast to coast have taken a beating (or shut down), CNN has taken a beating, and YouTube videos often get more viewers than MSNBC. Meanwhile, Fox News and FoxNews.com came out of nowhere to become wildly popular and profitable. These things weren't an accident.

I don't even recall noting Obama's Senatorial win in 2006.

This is laughable. You don't believe the fawning liberal media had anything to do with Obama's lightning ascent in American politics? He received the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars in free media coverage while a back-bench Illinois legislator and then a back-bench U.S. Senator, despite literally no legislative or leadership accomplishments of note. Obama is the biggest media creation in the history of American politics.

Like Obama in 2008, Santorum's candidacy is agenda-driven and identity-driven rather than experience-driven. In terms of actual qualifications without regard to ideology, he's about on the level of Dennis Kucinich.

The idea that the "media" can somehow swing an election in the 21st century is little more than paranoia run rampant. If the media could actually affect presidential elections with their coverage,

But there's simply no comparison between the media coverage of Obama and the media coverage of Santorum.

I've been accused of a lot of hand-waving, but if you aren't careful you are going to end up on the moon. ;-) Come on. One of a hundred, 85 of whom don't add up to a small percentage of FOX.

There reasons for that that have little to do with the left or right leanings of media outlets.

But in major cities from coast to coast, people have no such choice of newspapers.

I'm not a Santorum cheerleader by a long shot. But there's simply no comparison between the media coverage of Obama and the media coverage of Santorum.

This doesn't make sense. Newspapers are DYING because they aren't being read, not because people OH NOES have no where else to go but liberal papers. (And the non-urban print media, small cities, is quite vocally conservative, Utica being one example.) A liberal print media with no chance of remission is by default influencing people over FOX, whose viewership does naught but increase? Nonsensical.

I still can't grasp your hammering of the influence of the liberal media and your discount of - again - one of the most popular news and political sources in the nation.

If you contend that the Post-Standard influences more people in Onondaga and adjacent counties than FOX, is read as a primary source of political news by more people than who watch FOX, the debate is essentially over. I cannot see how that position is anything other than hallucination.

I had to re-read this one. People can't very easily ignore newspapers? WHAT? That's the whole point - they ARE ignoring them, in droves. And watching FOX, which you claim is somehow insignificant despite whatever numbers for their percentage of total viewers are thrown at you.

Someone might be hallucinating here, but it's not me. Fox News has essentially zero influence over elections in Onondaga and surrounding counties. Fox News is a national outlet that discusses national and statewide races. The Syracuse Post-Standard and other local papers collectively impact thousands of local and statewide elections across America every year.

Beyond that, in terms of your implied statistical claims, the Post-Standard's circulation is ~110,000/day and ~165,000/Sunday (per Wiki). I'd be shocked if anywhere near that number of Onondaga County residents are visiting FoxNews.com each day, or even watching Fox News on the tube.

Of course if you could demonstrate that only "liberal" newspapers are dying while "unbiased papers" aren't (whatever your example of "unbiased" might be), you might have a point. Good luck with that.

That playing to what a large segment of people *want* to hear and believe is bound to be wildly successful is, in retrospect, only surprising in the sense that someone didn't figure it out sooner.

Which is what we were talking about, national politics, not local.

Well, I can't find any numbers for either the Post-Standard's circulation trend or FOX news by county, so who knows? I'd be pretty shocked if 110,000 people were reading the Post-Standard every day, myself.

I understand fine - I just think you are wrong. That's not the same thing. You said FOX wasn't important because people could easily ignore it, and I simply contend ignoring a newspaper might actually even be easier.

I don't know what media you frequent, but the chronic tension between the countless factions of Democrats is a subject one would have to work hard to not notice.

Wikipedia acknowledges the Post-Standard's left lean, and makes a point to say it changed around the turn of the millenium, being conservative before, around the time you are pegging it as Worker's Revolt Daily. Call it a lie or whatever, but that seems like a rather even-handed claim.

Joe, do you have even the slightest idea of the conservative slant of the overwhelming majority of newspapers in the pre-television era, back when newspapers were the primary or sole source of political news?

the above, at best, seems like a footnote to the present-day situation/debate.

Well, if you're only talking about a newspaper's ability to influence local elections, that's a far cry from the sweeping claims that have been made about the media's influence on presidential elections.

When newspapers were at the top of the food chain, their impact was minimal.

But now, when newspapers are an endangered species, their impact is great.

That doesn't add up.

My day-to-day news sources consist 95% of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the PBS News Hour, whose combined coverage dwarfs anything I'm likely to find in all other U.S. news sources put together.** In all three of those outlets, I get every possible political POV reported in its news columns and represented on its opinion pages.

i think that obama got votes from people who voted for bush in 04 because mccain wasn't a very good candidate in the first place - personality/age all wrong, because of sarah palin (unthinkable as president if mccain died) and because the religious/"morality" loudmouths in the party turned off long time voters

It doesn't add up because it's not an accurate reflection of my position.

I don't get the point of arguing about bias in the media. No one is ever convinced.

Fair enough. The first sentence may not be, but the second one is what you have been arguing.

I don't recall classifying newspapers as being an "endangered species."

I thought the "endangered species" was a little hyperbole; you really believe newspapers are at serious risk of disappearing in the next few years?

They're already disappearing. We've already seen the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Oakland Tribune, Cincinnati Post and Rocky Mountain News fold. The Detroit Free Press's print edition is on life support. ...

Obama won his Senate seat in 2004. He was a candidate for the U.S. Senate when he delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention.

Which shows how far off my radar screen Obama was before early 2008.